title: Broadband light absorption enhancement in dye-sensitized solar cells with Au-Ag alloy popcorn nanoparticles.
abstract: In this paper, we present an investigation on the use of Au-Ag alloy popcorn-shaped nanoparticles (NPs) to realise the broadband optical absorption enhancement of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs). Both simulation and experimental results indicate that compared with regular plasmonic NPs, such as nano-spheres, irregular popcorn-shaped alloy NPs exhibit absorption enhancement over a broad wavelength range due to the excitation of localized surface plasmons (LSPs) at different wavelengths. The power conversion efficiency (PCE) of DSCs is enhanced by 16% from 5.26% to 6.09% by incorporating 2.38 wt% Au-Ag alloy popcorn NPs. Moreover, by adding a scattering layer on the exterior of the counter electrode, the popcorn NPs demonstrate an even stronger ability to increase the PCE by 32% from 5.94% to 7.85%, which results from the more efficient excitation of the LSP mode on the popcorn NPs.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electronic Engineering, Tsinghua National Laboratory for Information Science and Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
authors.forename: Qi
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Fang
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Yuxiang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Kaiyu
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Cui
authors.forename: Xue
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Feng
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Yidong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Huang